Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy at the Dem's Debate

By Adam Levitin

I think this blog has been really good at eschewing electoral politics issues, and I don't want to be the one to change that. Serendipitously, though, during the five minutes I had the TV on watching the Democratic debate, Tim Russert asked the Democratic candidates tonight about bankruptcy reform and their past positions on bankruptcy legislation, and the occasion cries out for a blog post.

Someone (I can't remember if it was Russert or one of the candidates) tossed out the "bankruptcies are up 40% from a year ago" statistic that made me cringe. After the mad filing rush before the BAPCPA went effective, it looks like the pipeline got cleared out for a while, so a large increase from 2006 to 2007 (if maybe not 40%) is hardly surprising. Another one of these shocking and politically useful, but not very informative statistics.

But otherwise, I was pleased to see that all three candidates were able to speak intelligently about bankruptcy issues and seemed reasonably well-informed about bankruptcy's role in the social safety net. In particular, all three candidates emphasized the connection between health care costs and bankruptcy.

Russert pushed Edwards and then Clinton on their support for the BAPCPA's predecessor bill in 2001 (Obama wasn't yet in the Senate). It was amazing to see how fast and unequivocally they disavowed their earlier support. Notably, neither explained why they changed their position.

In any case, it was nice to see bankruptcy, which is often seen as a technical issue, get a little time in the limelight.

Full post as published by Credit Slips on January 15, 2008 (boomark / email).